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Portrait of Spoon-billed sandpiper

Nature · Birds

Spoon-billed sandpiper

Critically Endangered · c. 443 mature individuals (2024 estimate)

Calidris pygmaea — Scolopacidae

A sparrow-sized wader with a unique black bill flattened into a spatula at the tip, breeding only on the coastal tundra of Chukotka in far eastern Russia and wintering in the mudflats of Myanmar, Bangladesh, Thailand and southern China. Loss of intertidal flats to reclamation along the East Asian–Australasian Flyway has driven it to the brink: a 2024 assessment put the world population at about 443 mature birds, still falling by roughly 5 per cent a year.

How to spot them

  • ▸The bill: black, and visibly spatulate — widened into a spoon at the tip, unique among waders
  • ▸Breeding adults have a rufous head, neck and breast with dark streaking; winter birds are pale grey above, very white-faced
  • ▸Feeds with a side-to-side sweeping motion of the bill through soft mud and shallow water
  • ▸About 14–16 cm long, noticeably small even beside a red-necked stint, with which it often associates
  • ▸Breeds only on lagoon spits and coastal tundra in Chukotka; winters on a handful of Asian mudflats

How to know it

A bill flattened into a black spatula at the tip, swept sideways through soft mud — unique among waders

Spoon-billed sandpiper, known to its conservationists as 'Spoonie'.

Breeds only on the coastal tundra of Chukotka and winters on mudflats from Myanmar to south China

Spoon-billed sandpiper — an 8,000 km migration each way.

In 2011 eggs were flown from Russia to Slimbridge to found the first captive population of the species

Spoon-billed sandpiper — WWT's headstarting programme.

Reclamation of Yellow Sea intertidal mudflats and mist-net hunting in Myanmar drove its collapse

Spoon-billed sandpiper — the flagship of the East Asian–Australasian Flyway.

A 2024 assessment put the world total at about 443 mature birds, declining some 5 per cent a year

Spoon-billed sandpiper — Critically Endangered.

Its former genus Eurynorhynchus means 'broad bill'; it is now placed with the stints in Calidris

Calidris pygmaea, the spoon-billed sandpiper.

Quick-fire facts

  • •Length 14–16 cm, weight 28–36 g; the only wader with a spatulate bill
  • •IUCN Red List: Critically Endangered; the mean 2024 global estimate is about 443 mature individuals (range 331–554)
  • •Described by Linnaeus in 1758 as Platalea pygmea; long placed in its own genus Eurynorhynchus, now merged into Calidris
  • •The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust flew eggs from Chukotka to Slimbridge in 2011 to establish a captive flock as insurance
  • •'Headstarting' — hatching wild-laid eggs in captivity and releasing the chicks — has roughly quadrupled fledging success at Meinypilgyno
  • •Hunting with mist nets on the Bay of Martaban in Myanmar was a major cause of adult mortality; alternative-livelihood schemes have cut it
  • •An International Single Species Action Plan for 2025–2035 was adopted under the East Asian–Australasian Flyway Partnership
  • •Key staging and wintering sites include the Jiangsu coast of China, the Bay of Martaban in Myanmar and Pak Thale in Thailand

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Sources